


The Left Sleeve

by WitchStuff



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Big Damn Spoilers, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Mandarin Chinese, Post-Serenity, a bit of cursing in English as well, cursing in Mandarin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:02:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2239950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchStuff/pseuds/WitchStuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because she has lived and learned and knows you can't get attached, not to nobody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Left Sleeve

**Author's Note:**

> This is post-Serenity, so Big Damn Spoilers. Seriously. If you haven't seen Serenity yet, don't read. But why haven't you seen Serenity yet, you big freak?

There's the matter of the sleeve of that shirt, the shirt and the pants and everything else she'd been wearing when her husband got impaled in front of her horrified eyes. Zoe doesn't know what to do. She can't ever wear them again, not ever, but she can't get rid of 'em, even though the back's completely shredded, Reaver-slashed, and the left sleeve's stained copper red from trying to get her dead husband to get up and go. She can't throw them away, though, and what she really wants to do is burn them to cinder and then toss the whole sorry mess out the airlock. She wakes up in the middle of the night, reaching for the dead husband who just came on to her in a dream, realizes he's rather absent, her entire body is seized by the pain of it all, and she's consumed by the desire to throw her own self out the airlock.

"Oh, don't do that, sweetie. You do, and Mal kills me. Won't that be a shame?" Wash's eyes are laughing to her from the dream. Shut up, she says. Fuck you, she says. You shouldn't have died. I hate you for making me love you in the first place.

"Well, live and learn, right?" Wash's hand goes up her thigh in the dream, and Zoe brushes it away in real life – it's just phantom pleasure she doesn’t want. She knows if Dream Wash doesn't stop touching, she'll wake up all fired up and wanting, and the pain will be so bad she'll contemplate the airlock again.

I _have_ lived, she tells dream-husband. I _have_ learned. Don't get attached 'cause everyone dies. Don't ever love any gorram one. "I love you, wife o'mine," he says suddenly, smiling their first ever smile as husband and wife. And she can't believe it; Wash is right there, right _there_ , in their bed, under their covers. Zoe reaches with her hand and she can feel his body heat on hers… she starts to cry and doesn't care who hears her. Fuck you, she yells at him, Where have you been? We thought you were dead, Wash, do you realize we thought you gorram _died_? I'm serious, you hwoon dahn. We were all worried sick about you! "It's true," Mal assures Wash, "She was gonna throw herself out the airlock and everything." "Oh, bao-bei, you were gonna do that over me?" At that, she reaches across the bed and slaps her suddenly-alive husband across his stupid, smirking face. Son of a whore. Do you understand what I'm saying here? I thought you were dead, Wash! I grieved for you!!

She chokes. She can hear her own voice echoing in the black for infinity. I grieved for you. I grieved for you. I grieved for you.

Wash turns to her, one palm covering the gaping hole in his chest, the other holding his bruised face. His stupid, yu bun duh, lovely, beloved face. The dream fades and her heart is dying and she reaches for him, Wait, she begs, Don't go, baby, please. I didn't mean to do that. Stay with me, don't leave me again, please, Wash, you shouldn't have made me love you—

Because she has lived and learned, and knew you can't get attached, not to nobody, 'cause everyone dies on you before you're willing to let them go, and all you're left with is begging – Wash, baby, no. Baby, come on, you gotta go, come on, we gotta move. Baby, please. We gotta move, baby, come on! – and a blood-soaked left sleeve.

Maybe she forgot before, he made her forget, but she remembers the lesson now, and as his smile drifts away from her in the fading dream, she tells him, Don't worry, bao-bai. I'll never make that mistake again.

 

The End  


**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2006 under the nick WhichWitch


End file.
